KOMMISSAR X - DREI BLAUE PANTHER - "Kill Panther Kill" (1968)

"Kommissar X - Drei Blaue Panther" was the third of five Kommissar X movies that had three shades of animals in the title. In 1966, it was Three Yellow Cats, 1967, it was Three Green Dogs, and in 1968, it was this Saturday Night Special feature about Three Blue Panthers. To round it out, there were Three Golden Serpents in 1969, and Three Red Tigers in 1971.

In English, only "The Three Golden Serpents" used that info in the title. This one is close because it at least mentioned a panther, but the titles of the other three are "Death Is Nimble, Death Is Quick," "Death Trip," and "FBI Operation Pakistan."

The people who made these Kommissar X films are smart, and they use locations where they can get cool shots for free. "Kill Panther Kill" was filmed in Canada. A lot of the early footage was shot at the Calgary Stampede, a celebration that has been going on since 1912. These days it's billed as "The Biggest Outdoor Show On Earth," and will open this year on July 8.

 

This float cracked me up, and all I could think of was............

.............A giant Hostess Snowball!

I just had to include this shot of Miss Pot O' Gold. 

Following the parade, they have a huge rodeo, an

event that is still one of the highlights of this ten day celebration!

Brad Harris is Captain Tom Rowland, and Tony Kendall is Jo Walker. They have a complicated relationship. They are like best friends, but they don't like each other getting involved in their business, so they fight and argue a lot. The Captain is from Los Angeles, but he's in Canada working on a case. Jo Walker works for an insurance company, and is trying to retrieve stolen jewelry in the same case.

Austrian born Hannelore Auer has the role of Jo Walker's girlfriend/secretary Betty Rogers. She was also in "Three Golden Serpents" as one of Jo's girlfriends.

In the sixties, Hannelore Auer was a popular singer in Germany. She was married to Austrian prince Alfred von Auersperg for eleven years, and after their divorce, she married German singer Heino, to whom she has been married ever since.

577477 has escaped from jail and is headed back to Canada to get the jewels he left with his twin brother years earlier.

Wow! They had a rocket pack demonstration at the rodeo. Pretty cool for 1968!

Even though he's north of the border, Jo Walker shows up in disguise as somebody from south of the border to try and blend in with the western festivities.

From Calgary, the action moves to Montreal, and a shot of the Biosphere, which was donated to Canada by President Lyndon B. Johnson after the the Expo 67 ended.

Dirty bastard 577477 kills his twin brother, and assumes his identity so he can find out where the jewels are.

Jo Louis Walker, sometimes also known as Kommissar X, starts putting all the pieces together after reading about brothers Cain and Abel in a Bible that a nice lady gave him.

Sometimes they are at each other's throats, and sometimes you just can't separate these two.

Here are the three panthers in question, and inside is the key to the jewels.

You just know that they are going to use each and every object you see in this shot, and indeed they do!

This is what villains see most of the time when they mess with the Captain and the Kommissar!

 

Somebody finally gets to the location of the jewels, and of course, this is what they find instead, a picture of Kommissar X.

The bottom line is that every Kommissar X film I've seen so far has been fun to watch, and are always full of shots like this!

Not much of a surprise that Jo's got the key! 

There's no reason for me to tell you how it all works out, because you can see for yourself right

HERE!